I'm a troper, artist, blogger, LPer, author, poet, and chemist. I dabble in painting, fabric crafts, and pixel art as well. I made the emotes and most of the buttons for the forum. I love dubstep, Batman, the Myst series, Phantom of the Opera, and surreal/Lovecraftian/psychological horror. And the Slenderman and Fear Mythoii, of course.

I'm snarky, goofy, and love puns far more than is healthy for me. I'm one of the creators of the Willow Mythos and the Mother of the Weeping Willow (she is mai preshus bby). And I probably give Tall and Faceless too many nicknames for his/its own good. XD

Favorite big Slenderseries is TribeTwelve, Marble Hornets is a close second. Favorite small series is ICANSEETHEGIANT. Favorite vlog not featuring the Slender One is WhisperedFaith. As for Fears, I really like the ideas behind the Intrusion (scares me), Wooden Girl, the Convocation, and the Grotesque, as well as the Rake and Slendy himself of course.

What are, ultimately, some themes you think fit this Mythos? I know we did discuss some stuff in the Skype chat about it. here's some basic conclusions most fo us agreed upon.

There is death and suffering in this Mythos, but mostly it's about life, the life of beings trying to exist and coexist in a morally grey world, the way life gives challenges you must either surmount or be crushed by, and how this can cause great suffering or great triumph. Everyone struggles and hurts. Tears for laughter, tears for sorrow. The more I look at Willow, my precious bby, the more I realize she works wonderfully well for this concept and even embodies it. Good reason she's the Mythos mascot then.

This Mythos is also a horror Mythos, and the subjects of Body Horror, Psychological horror, and existential horror should not be overlooked. Action, adventure, love, and comedy are all wonderful and should be included, but they should never overshadow the fact that this world, this universe, is a horrific one to live in for pretty much everyone involved. Hell, even for Abstracts - there's an Abstract that hunts them, after all, and when things that represent things like time, space, the unknown, and logic are being hunted (and could even die if you wanted them to), you know you live in a pretty crapsack world.

Not just that, but this is a tragic Mythos. People suffer and become monsters, literally, in this Mythos. People lose loved ones. Everyone can have personal tragedy, from Abstracts to Humans. That should not be overlooked, or disregarded for the sake of just making it horrifying. If we just wanna make it about horrifying monsters, well, that's what the Fear Mythos is for. Remember that the monsters, including even the Abstracts, are characters, too. Blue and Orange morality is still a moral code, and even eldritch alien characters are still characters.

Humans exist in this world, take care not to overlook them. The middle ground between them and the Abstracts are the Afflicted. Humans are powerless, Abstracts might as well be gods to them, and the Afflicted are kind of like the horrific version of the X-Men. Outcast and mistrusted by even humans who do think they're alright, and not really respected by the Abstracts due to their low-level power. This is the dynamic of this universe, and the implications behind such a world are frightening.

This is what we've so far come to agree upon between a few people in the Skypechat. If you have other themes that might fit and could build our Mythos, please discuss them here. :3

Aww yeah, guess who's back and feeling like her old self again, ready to help bring this Mythos to life?

Okay guys, a few things. First up, I want to formally apologize for some of my behavior in the Skypechat over the past few months. I was going through a very difficult time in my life at that point and dealing with some minor depression that left me snappish, irritable, and generally made me kind of a not very fun person to be around, as well as made me neglectful to this Mythos and to my other projects. I'm sorry if I hurt anyone, drove anyone away, or otherwise came across as a horrible whiny bitch, because that's not me and I don't want to be seen that way. Sorry for bringing drama in. Sorry for being a sadsack. Sorry. I'm feeling a LOT better now and have found a way to deal with my issues, so I'm alright now and I feel horrible about what I did.

All that said, time to get this thing started and focused. we have a LOT of outdated material and a lot of extraneous crap to trim. I know we're focusing on shaping this Mythos, if we want to do that we need a focus. The following changes are gonna take place, and the following things need to be done:

While discussing with people in the skypechat, many have have come to the conclusion of what this Mythos is really about - it's about life. while other Mythoii focus on the unknown, the mysterious, and death, we are focusing on the horrors of living, the challenges of living, and we are doing so with eldritch beings, monsters, and yes - human beings too. This idea was suggested by ZacksQuest and I feel it is pointing in the right direction based on some of what my original concepts behind WTA were and are. Thanks again Zack for putting into words what I couldn't originally.

We need someone who will be dedicated to rewriting and fixing the outdated TVTropes page "The Willow Mythos" to reflect our new direction. That includes discussing the major themes behind the Mythos.

Speaking of major themes of this Mythos, we have had some discussion on that. A thread will be made to discuss different themes for the Mythos, and if anyone objects or wants to add new stuff, you can pitch it there. Time to bring this forum back to life in the best way possible.

Effective immediately, we will no longer be using that shitty new Wiki Cat suggested we make. As I recall not many people wanted it anyway, and it's been really neglected as of late. We are going to be using only the old wiki from now on, because we really don't need all that extra shit to have a good wiki. Because of this I need several people to help make the Wiki better reflect the new Mythos - that means discussion of Abstracts, changing all mentions of "Altered" to "Afflicted", and adding the new characters that Eric's little experiment helped us all create to the Wiki. Once this Mythos has more locations and notable things, we can also add locations, notable humans, and more to the Wiki. This will help grow and foster the Mythos lore.

Also effective immediately, there is a temporary hiatus on making new Afflicted (and a suggestion to decide very carefully whether your story needs new Abstracts or not). I know I originally said make whatever you want, but I now realize that this is going to lead to Loads And Loads Of Characters, which will get confusing. We are going to be encouraging more people to try and use the Afflicted we have. The character-making step is done now, we need to focus on the story-telling aspect, and on fleshing out those characters. Sure, Willow has a set character, but does Fleshangel have one yet? Does Socky? Does the Egg? What about the various Abstracts we have, are we gonna give them set personalities or leave it up to the author?

Effective right now, I would like to begin looking at world-building. That means stuff like collaborative roleplays, collaboration projects, and other things. What kind of locations are we talking about? What is the culture of the Afflicted like, what is the human reaction to them? What about the Abstracts, how much a hand do they have in things (or should we leave that up to the author)? I would propose a new writing contest, but that may be a bit too much. If you have ideas to world-build, let me know, but ultimately writing will be the only way to world-build at all and keep it semi-solid.

Hope this helps give us a new direction to go in, and a focus for this Mythos. Let's grow this thing into something great, shall we?

What can we all do to make this Mythos more conducive to getting people to discuss the Mythos as a whole and possibilities behind it, ratehr than just making new creatures?

Discuss. :3

Update: Because Magi asked me to log it and Eric asked what I was trying to do/envisioned for this Mythos...

My vision for this Mythos is ultimately to first build a pantheon of monsters and characters we can draw from. We have achieved that with the Afflicted. Then the next step would be allowing people to take those monsters and say, "Have at it, do what you want, even make new beings if you like. But tell a story. Do something with it."[10:58:23 PM] DarkShadows: Maybe what we need is a limit on new creatures for a while.[11:00:45 PM] DarkShadows: Let's all try something like this. Let's try another project, maybe. Maybe have everyone pick a few Afflicted, an Abstract, and create some human characters, and write a blog. Doesn't need to be a long blog. Can be a blogpasta. As long as we're writing something with characters we already have, and establishing ways these characters can behave and act. They're not cardboard props that stand in the background and look creepy (Slendy... *glares*), and they're not just templates for things and concepts (Fears... *glares*). These creatures have lives. They doubt, dread, hurt, and behave like humans. They are human in emotion (sometimes, how much depends on you), but they are also monstrous, and they can't always control *how* monstrous they are. This provides a great deal of inner turmoil and stuff.[11:01:32 PM] DarkShadows: They can't connect to humans, humans fear them and they hunt humans. They can't connect to the Abstracts, their creators (purposeful or not), because they aren't truly on that level. They're in a sort of limbo.[11:02:19 PM] DarkShadows: This is about them. This is about looking at the in-between. You can *also* choose to focus on the idea of humans versus these in-betweens. Ideally, the Abstracts should be background beings, brought in only when there's some serious shit going down.[11:03:43 PM] DarkShadows: Think like how Lovecraft's Mythos had some beings, like Cthulhu, that were dangerous and powerful and Eldritch but not the *most* dangerous, powerful, or eldritch like something like Azathoth was (basically, reality is its dream and thoughts and if it wakes up nreality goes poof, that's crazy powerful right there).[11:07:01 PM] DarkShadows: Similar concept with the Afflicted and the Abstract, except you have humans becoming Cthulhu or at the very least Shoggoths (very bad for one's mind and very traumatic), and the Azathoth-level (or below, depending on how strong you make your Abstracts) beings are so out there and eldritch they don't even think anything of the fact they're turning humans into monsters, and they don't care, because that's kind of just what they do and why they cause issues for humans. Slenderman, an Abstract in this case (lower in power but still powerful), does not really stop to think that "hey, maybe turning someone into a crying tree woman could bite me in the butt later, whatever man, I do my own thing. I can do some time-space bullshit later. It's what I dooooo~."[11:07:08 PM] DarkShadows: Does *that* make more sense.

I hope you're all having a great time here on the forums and on the Skypechat. I love being able to share in the close-knit community we've all helped build (and rebuild), and I love hearing everyone's new ideas and theories about the world we've created together. It's always fun to Skypechat especially, because you guys get so damn crazy and strange I have to laugh.

However, as you all know, the Afflictedchat gets very fast-paced and crowded sometimes, and some people will leave or set their notification settings for the chat to notify them only if certain words are mentioned, usually their name. I will not name names, but I'm bringing this up because there have recently been a few incidents in the Afflictedchat where people are purposefully repeating members' names to get their attention and notify them, and unfortunately this behavior is causing issues because people have not been respecting these members' notification settings.

This will be said once and only once: this behavior is not acceptable, and it will not be tolerated in the Afflictedchat. This is considered spamming and we have a rule against that for a reason.

There are reasons people choose to be notified only if their name is called, important reasons. Some people become overwhelmed with the fast pace of the chat. Some people are very busy. This behavior is not okay anymore and this is the only warning I will be giving about it before I enact an official rule with more severe consequences attached to it. Currently, if any of the Afflictedstaff see you spamming another member's name in the Afflictedchat, you will be warned. Do it again and you will be warned again. Continuing to do this will result in you being removed from the chat until further notice.

If you see this behavior, please tell a mod or admin. if you're a mod and you see this, please report it to me or to Pandora/Marquise.

Please familiarize yourself with the forum/chat rules, helpfully linked at the top of every forum, if you are not familiar with them yet. If you have any questions, you may ask me or Pandora/Marquise.

Outside of the Bearer City's gates, the world is a no-man's land, a wild wasteland of decimated buildings and reclamation by nature. This is the domain of the non-Personal Fears, lurking at every shadow like vicious predators, waiting to spring upon anyone foolish enough to step outside the gates. Of course, people do, and people must send convoys from other cities and farming areas, woe betide to them. Or it would be, if the city didn't impose a strict drawing panel to pick from the city populous to defend the convoys. And of course, there's always the adventurous rebel wanting to take the risk and venture out, relying on their Personal Fears to protect them from Nomad bands (who despise the Bearers), Fear Servants, and the Fears themselves...

Shadows moved through the shady forest underbrush slowly, careful not to attract unwanted attention. Last thing she needed was the Rake on her tail, or worse, the actual Slenderman. Fortunately, she was good at sneaking about, and not many beings wanted to mess with something that even vaguely looked like the Tall Guy himself.

///Shadowchild, A.R.K. convoy inbound./// Evergreen's inscrutible gaze, peering from the forest thickets, followed the convoy as it approached the forest's edge. ///Approaching slowly. Seems to have had a setback. Potentially damaged.///

///Potentially a flat tire. Seems they've stopped to fix it. I suggest that we move in as soon as possible to prevent them from being vulnerable. I sense illness on the wind./// Its otherwise still, almost branchlike tendrils quivered at the tips, sensing acutely.

Right. Moving in, keep close watch.

///Always.///

Shadows slowly, quietly made her way through the dense underbrush, eventually reaching the exit. Not that the convoy driver was too happy to see someone sneaking out of the forest, not when she had previously been attacked by Proxies earlier...

"S-stay back, I have a Raketype!" the driver cried out in alarm, backing against the convoy. Something inside the convoy whispered harshly in aggression.

"Relax, I'm not a Servant. The city sent me out."

The driver did not untense for a second, eyeing Shadows warily, but seemed to trust her enough for now.

"I-I wanna see your ID," she said. "I wanna know who the hell you are."

"Willow. Willow Withers," Shadows responded. "Chemistry major, Bearer of Evergreen, Slendertype. Part-time convoy guard for the next 6 months. Looks like a flat tire. Do you have a spare?"

"I-I think. Let me check."

The driver moved around to the back of the convoy, whispering in some sort of harsh tongue Shadows couldn't understand, then returned to the front.

"Scratch is gonna look for one, says there's one back there," the driver replied, leaning against the convoy. In the meantime, might want to tell your Slendertype to be careful out there, I noticed Nightlander activity not far down the road."

"Yeah," Shadows murmured, keeping close watch over the horizon in order to protect the convoy. "So did he."